Human Presence Diminishes the Importance of Climate in Determining U.S. Fire Activity: Research Brief

Human Presence Diminishes the Importance of Climate in Determining U.S. Fire Activity: Research Brief

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers with the Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Geological Survey showed that, across the U.S. on landscapes dominated by humans, climate has played a relatively small role in determining wildfire activity.

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Are historical fire regimes compatible with future climate? Implications for forest restoration: Research Brief

Are historical fire regimes compatible with future climate? Implications for forest restoration: Research Brief

Future climate-induced shifts in fire regimes and plant distributions could uncouple vegetation from the fire regimes for which they are adapted. The brief discusses changes to fire-adapted plant communities under modeled climate change scenarios and their implications on the Kaibab Plateau landscape.

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Modeling Desert Shrubland Changes with an Invasive Grass Introduction and Climate Change: Research Brief

Modeling Desert Shrubland Changes with an Invasive Grass Introduction and Climate Change: Research Brief

For desert shrubland species that have evolved without fire, the introduction of a grass-fire, positive feedback cycle is particularly problematic. This brief discusses work done by researchers who modeled the grass-fire cycle for non-fire-adapted desert shrublands under three sets of climate conditions.

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Parsing Ecosystem Responses: Divergent Fire-Climate Patterns for California Landscapes: Research Brief

Parsing Ecosystem Responses: Divergent Fire-Climate Patterns for California Landscapes: Research Brief

In an era of concern over climate change, it's important to understand how different kinds of fire-adapted of ecosystems in California may respond to climate change in relation to fire. This study categorized Californian ecosystems into three types and discusses how each may be affected by climate change and fire.

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Drought and Fire in California: Research Synthesis

Drought and Fire in California: Research Synthesis

The likely effects of drought associated with climate change in the United States have recently been synthesized by James M. Vose, James S. Clark, Charles H. Luce and Toral Patel-Weynand. Here we summarize their conclusions as they apply to drought and fire and provide examples of how these conditions are affecting different ecosystems in California.

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Predicting Future Fire Regimes: Still a Long Way to Go: Research Brief

Predicting Future Fire Regimes: Still a Long Way to Go: Research Brief

In a review article by Jon Keeley and Alex Syphard, examples from California show that fire regimes are sensitive to geographic and seasonal variation in the climate signal and that many factors will confound the ability to model future conditions.

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What affects fire behavior more, climate or fuels? Research Brief

What affects fire behavior more, climate or fuels? Research Brief

The authors examined the relationship between fuels and fire behavior by examining how fire suppression has affected fire severity in different forest ecosystems in California. The authors tested the hypothesis that fire behavior is limited by fuel availability in some California forests where climatic conditions during the fire season are nearly always conducive to burning and the primary limiting factor for fire ignition and spread is the presence of sufficient fuel.

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Prescribed burning and the drought: go or no go? Research Brief

Prescribed burning and the drought: go or no go? Research Brief

Research Brief/Management Consideration. One topic that is generating a great deal of interest among fire management professionals as California enters the fall prescribed fire season is whether we should be burning during this fourth year of drought.  This brief discusses what managers should consider before doing a prescribed burn.

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The “Interval Squeeze”- Fire and Climate Change Combine to Accelerate Woody Plant Loss in Dry Climates: Research Brief

The “Interval Squeeze”- Fire and Climate Change Combine to Accelerate Woody Plant Loss in Dry Climates: Research Brief

Hotter, drier climates resulting from climate change will reduce the ability of woody plants to recover after fire. When combined with shorter fire return intervals, the resulting “interval squeeze” increases the risk for individual species extirpation.  

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Fire and fuel treatment effects on understory plant diversity in California mixed-conifer forests: Research Brief

Fire and fuel treatment effects on understory plant diversity in California mixed-conifer forests: Research Brief

The authors surveyed understory vegetation across a gradient of increasing canopy loss, ranging from unmanaged forest to fuel treatments, fuel treatments followed by low-moderate severity wildfire, and high-severity wildfire only.

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Precipitation Regime Classification for the Mojave Desert:Presentation PDF

The goals of this project were to provide a more detailed representation of the rainfall patterns in the Mojave and to compare the current precipitation regime and patterns with both historic patterns and predicted future patterns.

Presenter: Jerry Tagestad et al.
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Carbon sequestration and cycling: Recorded Presentation

Presented at the 2nd Annual Southern Chaparral Symposium, 2015. 
This presentation explains the basics of carbon sequestration  in  drylands and Mediterranean ecosystems in addition to a basic overview of the carbon cycle. A major question discussed is  "what influences rates of emission and organization of soil carbon?"  

Presenter: Darrell Jenerette

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Climate change effects and scenarios of megadroughts: Recorded Presentation

Presented at the 2nd Annual Southern Chaparral Symposium, 2015. By examining chaparral characteristics and known life cycle traits, the impacts of a possible mega-drought are discussed. 

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How climatic variability can increase or decrease the amount of aspen in the landscape: Presentation PDF

This is a presentation from the Aspen Restoration and Ecology Workshop in 2015.

The consequences of climate change for quaking aspen are likely to be complex and contingent on effects of post-disturbance climate as well as on feedbacks among climate, disturbances, and forest composition.
Presenter: Dominik Kulakowski
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Trees already stressed by drought may be more likely to die from fire: USGS Research Brief

A study published in Ecology Letters suggests that the effects of drought and fire work in combination, such that forests experiencing drought will see more dead trees in the aftermath of wildfires.
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